&nbspReflection: High Quality Task The Whipping Boy - Making Connections - Section 3: Making Connections with Diary of a Worm

I was VERY worried after the students plastered the posters with their sticky notes that the students would be overwhelmed when it came time to read over and analyze whether or not the sticky notes were in the correct place. I was completely WRONG! The y read through the notes carefully and were so proud of themselves when they found one they believed belonged on a different poster.

The students were thoroughly engaged. I would highly recommend this task for other subjects as well.

In this unit we are focusing on comprehension strategies that good or users read to comprehend the text. In this lesson will be focusing on making connections with the text. We will look at the three different kinds of connections: text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world. I'll use a PowerPoint to introduce these types of connections to the students. I've included my PowerPoint in the resources.

Resources (1)

Resources

We will be using "Diary of a Worm" by Doreen Cronin to practice making connections with the text. I will pass out to the students about 10 sticky notes per student. I will then instruct the students to write down when they make a connection with the story. Each connection made should go on a separate sticky note. If they run out of sticky notes I have extras available on each table. I will then read "Diary of a Worm" to the students.

After we have finished the story, I will have the students think about the connections they made in the text and decide whether they are text-to-self, text-to-text, or text-to-world connections. I stuck a giant sized post-it with each of these connection titles on the walls around the room. The next job the students have will be to stick their connection sticky notes onto the proper posters.

Once all the sticky notes of them placed on the posters, will divide the students into three groups each group will to a poster and read through the connections that were made. They will then decide if the connections fit under that category. If they feel the connection would fit better under a different category, they can bring a sticky note to me and tell me why they feel the sticky note should be placed on a different poster. If I agree with them, I will have them place the sticky note on that poster.

Resources

Now that the students are experts on making connections, I will have them fill out the connections graphic organizer as they read through chapter six of "The Whipping Boy " by Sid Fleischman. I have included the graphic organizer in the resources. I included one with graphics and one without. I used the one without the graphics and my students had no trouble remembering which connections were which after our "Diary of a Worm" activity.

Big Idea:
Speed reading has its place, but so does slowing down. It is fun to give our reading rate in terms of gears on a car. This helps them remember and make good choices about how to read different texts.